Ep 23 - Allison's Story - How Under-eating and Overtraining Led to Hormonal and Metabolic Issues as well as Weight Gain

Coach Allison discusses her own history of under-eating and overtraining and how it ultimately led to the inability to lose weight, hormonal imbalance, infertility, and lots of frustration.  Learn how she got herself out of this cycle and why she is so passionate about helping other women who are also stuck in this cycle.  

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30 Podcast. I'm Joe. And I'm Allison. And we're your co hosts and the founders of Couture Fitness and Lifestyle Coaching. We're on a quest to help women design lives they love and bodies they adore. We were fed up with the dieting industry and decided to create something different. We're starting a calories up revolution where women are nourished, their metabolisms are healed and their bodies and brains start working for them in the battle against weight loss. If you feel like your metabolism is wrecked, and you want to lose weight once and for all, you are in the right place. Welcome everyone. This is Alison, you've just got me here on the podcast today. And I'm going to be talking about my own personal story with fitness nutrition, but also primarily with my journey with under eating and overtraining and all of the many, many issues that that caused because I know there are a lot of people out there who are in a similar spot to what I was in. And I just want to share my story, hoping that it will help someone or many of you, and show you that there is a way to get out of that situation. And to fix some of the issues that can arise from under eating in or overtraining, if there had been somebody that I could have turned to many years ago, that would have just told me, Hey, all of these problems that you're having, you can fix by simply eating more and working out less, it would have been absolutely life changing. As you will hear, as I talk about my story, I spent years no thinking all kinds of things were just wrong with me or I just had a this is just how my body was supposed to be or I just had a slow metabolism. And I eventually kind of figured this out all on my own. Just really by going on forums on the internet. I know that sounds crazy. But there was no doctor, no personal trainer, or fitness coach that ever thought that hey, maybe your problems are due to under eating. Nobody ever dug deeper into this. And if they did, I don't think they really would have realized that I was under eating and overtraining. So if you if you're listening to my story today, and you feel like you might be stuck in a similar spot, you are definitely somebody that we can help with our one on one coaching programs, we tailor all of our coaching to the individual, some people need to eat less, some people need to eat more, some people need to work out less than people need to work out more. So anytime you buy a program with us, and we start those always on the start of a new quarter, you'll get sent a very detailed questionnaire and that will be what your personal coach uses to design your plan. And then you will check in with your coach every single week. And they will decide whether they need to make changes. And when I say a plan, you'll get both fitness and nutrition plan. We do everything with macros, we'd like to keep our nutrition very flexible, we're not going to hand you some you no specific meal plan and say this is what you're going to eat every day. That's just not realistic. And then in addition to that customized coaching, we also offer multiple live zoom calls every single week. So Joe, who is our certified life coach does one call each week that is just an open q&a where you can call in and ask questions. And the other is prepared content around mindset nutrition and fitness. So that is what you get if you buy a program with us. Like I said, we are always enrolling but we do start our programs at the start of each quarter. So January one April, one July one in October one, it just helps to keep things organized in to allow you to go through this program with others who are in a similar situation as you and really help you feel that camaraderie by going through it at the same time as some other ladies and some men too. Okay, so I'm going to get into my my own personal story. I've talked about this on a lot of podcasts, but I've just mentioned bits and pieces about it. So I just really wanted to make this podcast and hopefully won't go too long to really tell all of the details of my story because I know there are so many other women who are in a similar spot. We have so many clients who have come to us that are in similar situations. So I know this is very common. I know at the time, I thought I was very weird. I was like there's nobody else who's going through this at least nobody I knew. But now I know it is very common, maybe not as common to start as early as I did, but it is very common. So for me my journey with hormonal and metabolic infertility, weight gain issues all started when I was probably 16 or 17. I had started birth control just to regulate my periods because they were very irregular and I gained some weight. And so I decided to stop that birth control. But I also I can blame all of the weight gain on the birth control. I mean, I was turning 16 Getting my freedom being able to drive where I wanted to I could you know I could drive places and go buy food if I wanted to. So I know my eating habits were not amazing, but they certainly weren't bad. And I got to a point where I thought I needed to lose weight I did not I weighed the same amount at that point that I weigh now, and I'm very happy with how my body looks now. But at the time, it was the heaviest I'd ever been. So I was like, Oh, I think I need to lose weight. So I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was based on teen magazines that I would read. And that was to eat 15 1600 calories. All the magazine's would constantly say, Oh, if you want to lose weight, eat, here's a 1500 calories sample menu. And this is what you should do. So that's what I did. I started eating like 1500 calories a day. This was well before apps and smartphones. So I just tracked it all in my head, or I think I even had like a little like a notebook that I would track it in. Sometimes the weight came off really quickly. I don't know what I was eating before then I'm sure it was a very healthy amount, it definitely was probably 2000 calories or higher, and the weight came off very quickly. I also started running because I thought that's what you had to do. Also, if you wanted to lose weight. So I did that for a few months, and I lost so much weight. So fast. I got I'm only five foot two, but I got below 100 pounds, and it honestly looks terrible. I was way too skinny. But what I should have done and what I didn't know at the time, what I should have done is I should have said, Okay, I've hit my goal weight. Now I'm going to get my calories back up. So I don't end up in a bad spot metabolically. But I didn't know that at the time. I mean, I was only 17. And I don't think a lot of people knew it back then I think a lot of people today still don't realize that I know a lot of people today don't realize that because we get women all the time who come to us having had success on a diet, but then they get stuck. And they end up in this terrible spot metabolically because they know they don't know that you need to get your calories back up to a high level, a higher level a healthy level once you've either hit your goal or plateau. And so what happened is I just kept eating that way. And for a while I didn't stay very, very skinny. I also started lifting weights at that time, I took a weightlifting class just in high school, and I loved it. So I'm very thankful that at least I got into that habit very early on as well. So I was super active, I was running, I was lifting weights, I was cheerleading, I was doing track, but I just kept, you know, under eating, and eventually. So then I go to college kept eating at this level, again, I was what I would call extremely active, I should have been eating so much more than 2000 calories I was working out, I was walking all over the place on campus, just walking to classes. And eventually I did start to gain weight, but it was very slow. And so over the course of college, you know, for years, I gained back all of that weight that I had lost, and even a little bit more. But the problem was now I was eating only 15 1600 calories a day. So now I'm maintaining this weight that I at one point was unhappy with. But now I'm back at that weight again. But now I'm only eating 15 1600 calories. And I was like what is wrong? Am I actually thought and this might sound ridiculous. But I thought well, you know, I'm getting older, I guess my metabolism is just slowing down and I can't eat as much or maybe I just have this slow metabolism. I'm just unlucky. And I just can't eat as much as a lot of people. So that's where I was. At the time I was 23. I was definitely heavier than when I started all of this. I guess I was at a healthy weight. I was certainly not overweight at all. But I did not feel like my body reflected how I was eating and all of the activity that I was doing. And so I decided I saw this documentary on MTV and I decided that I wanted to do a bodybuilding competition because I had seen this girl trained for one and she got in, she was super lean. And I that's what I wanted to look like. So I just did some Googling, I found some coach some local coaches who had trained people for these competitions. And you know, in hindsight, I wish I would have I wish Google would have found some different coaches for me because they never asked what I was doing before so they had no idea whether or not I was eating enough, I do know that they gave everybody the same macros. I mean girls who were much taller than me and had been eating way more than me, we all got the same macros to start with. So it certainly wasn't the best situation. I know I had to get down to somewhere around 1200 calories a day I was doing over an hour of cardio a day some of that was hit I was also lifting four or five days a week so I had to do a crazy amount of exercise and eat very little and very little carbs actually to get show ready. And on the day of the show. If I look back I did not look at all like a bodybuilder. Sure I was skinny but I looked so much better many years later when I learned that I will say is the right way to train for something like that. And then when that show was over I was never told to get my calories back up I just they my coaches just said oh try not to gain too much weight and so I just kind of kept doing quite a bit of cardio I only got my calories back up to maybe like 1600 calories again so nothing healthy. I decided to compete again the next year. I was hoping you know I was gonna look so much better. I think I look a little bit worse because I've probably lost so much muscle over the course of that year by doing so much cardio and never getting my my calories back up. And so this is really when I started to have a lot more of these side effects from the time I started training for that competition all the way up through The time I trained for the next competition a full year later, I did not have a period at all, I completely lost it. I did have some labs done during this time, because at some point, you know, after I went a few years, I was like, This is not normal. But I would go have labs done and all of my hormones and everything would come back in the normal range. And I was only told by doctors that oh, you should just go on birth control to get your period back. And looking back. I think that is absolutely terrible. Clearly something is seriously going on if you do not have a period for two years. But that is all I was ever told by an OBGYN oh, you should just go on birth control. I wasn't underweight. And so I think I remember one time even kind of mentioning like, Hey, here's what I'm eating, and all the workout I'm doing and the doctor said, Oh, your, your body mass is high enough. That's not the issue that 100% was the issue. But that's all they really said, you know, still I didn't really think too much of it. I was like, Okay, I'll just go on birth control. And well, then not too long. After that, I decided I wanted to get pregnant. And I knew that's never going to happen if I didn't have a period. Again, no doctor ever said much about this. But I started going on somehow I stumbled on these forums of other women who were having the same issue. And I eventually discovered all on my own that basically, I had some type of Thalmic amenorrhea going on. So HPA Axis issues just from under eating for so long. And everything I learned about this was truly from these forums, there were women on there, in my same situation, they had no doctors who would help them they had nowhere to turn, really. And they were in my situation where they wanted to get pregnant, they weren't having their period. And all of them were trying to get their food up because they had discovered basically again, all on their own. In order to make this pregnancy happen. They needed to get their food up, get their cycle going again, get that HPA Axis issue remedied. And so that's, that's where I learned all of this, I actually did go to a functional doctor. At one point personally, that's what I would recommend to a lot of people, if you have any sort of suspected hormonal or thyroid or gut health issues, I would say go to a functional doctor. But the one I went to was not good at all, they did not think I needed to eat more, which was my entire issue, they really just wanted me to buy their vegan protein powder. So that was a complete waste of my time, I spent a lot of money on their supplements that did absolutely no good. Um, so really, it kind of came down to everybody on this forum fix their issue by eating more and working out less, a lot of them had to gain weight in order to get their cycle back, even if they weren't underweight before. And I will say I tried, I definitely tried, once I realized this is my issue, I tried to get my calories up, and my cardio down and I did to some degree, but I would always freak out like I would, you know, I'd probably go a week or so with my calories up. And then if the scale started to go up, I probably freaked out and brought him back down again. And what I needed so desperately during this time and actually many years be before this time was somebody who could guide me through this and say, Hey, you were going to this is where your food needs to be. If I would have had somebody keeping me accountable, I wouldn't have freaked out and taken, you know, one step forward, and then two steps back by just bringing my calories down every time I freaked out about weight gain again. So it's so wish I would have had somebody to guide me through this at that time. And I will say I never really did fix my issue on my own. Before I got pregnant, I ultimately started working with the fertility doctor, they put me on injections that I needed in order to ovulate to release an egg. And I was very lucky that I had no other tissues besides the fact that I was not ovulating and having a period. And so I did get pregnant pretty quickly once I started the injections. And I remember when I was pregnant, I said I would never ever, ever get myself into a situation like this again, and I have not. So I said I'm going to keep my food up, I'm not going to do too much cardio. If I ever see that my period is getting out of whack again, I will eat more cut back on any exercise that I'm doing. And I remember around nine months after having my oldest I got my period back and it was like one of the most exciting days ever. It was the first natural period I'd had in many, many years. And so after that I did I actually said I would never compete in bodybuilding. Again, a friend of mine competed I'd said do not go to these coaches I used maybe try some other quotes that I knew of a local coach. And she had a drastically different experience. She was hardly doing any cardio. She was eating quite a bit. And so I was like well, maybe I'll give this a try again. And I did a lot of research online on my own over these years. I mean, just hours and hours of research before bed. That's what I would do. I would read things online and I taught myself quite a bit just you know just from my own situation and being almost obsessive about this topic. And so what happened when I competed again after I think I competed for the first time after having my second baby was when she was around one a year old. I kept my I'd kept my food up so high. So when I say high around 2000 calories or in way higher actually when I was nursing so that when I actually went to cut for my bodybuilding competition, I was like oh my gosh I'm able to lose weight now on 1600 calories, which I used to eat to maintain my weight. And it was just I was doing so much less cardio, I was doing maybe 20 minutes, five days a week, and then I was lifting and then eating like 1600 calories a day very, very doable, which it had to be because I had two children working full time was a drastically different experience. And the funny thing is, I was able to get leaner than I did for either of those two shows that I did before when I was doing that hour plus of cardio. So I definitely figured out the right way to do competition prep. And another big contributing factors, I think, you know, I lifted for years and years, I was almost wasting my time, all those years, I was lifting and not eating enough, I certainly wasn't able to put on muscle, I'm sure it helped. It helped me, you know, to maintain the muscle that I did have, but I really wasn't making for all the lifting I did, I made very, very little progress simply because I just wasn't eating enough. And when I finally started really focusing on lifting heavy, hardly doing any cardio and eating enough, that's what really, really changed my physique. So the last time I competed, it was actually right before I got pregnant with my third, definitely it was the best I ever looked. And it's I mean, clearly I was the the oldest for that show, then I was compared to the other two when I definitely looked the best that I ever have. So now I am just about to turn for the I have very what I will call happy hormones a regular cycle, I can maintain a weight that I am very happy with eating over 2000 calories, probably 90% of the year, that's what I do 80 to 90% of the year, I eat over 2000 calories, I do very little cardio, and I lift four days a week, and I'm just I just try to be generally active like with my kids, I'm not I don't ever go to the gym anymore. And say I'm going to get on the elliptical for 30 minutes and get on the spin bike. Never. And I also have I found out about to two years ago that I've got a I had knee surgery. 20 years ago, on my left knee, I tore my ACL and I have almost no cartilage on the inner portion of that knee, I was having some major pain when I would do things like plyometrics or anything high impact. And so I ended up getting an MRI and they said well, you're probably going to need a partial knee replacement. In the next they had no idea they said it could be in the next two years or the next 10 years just really depending on when it really started to give them trouble. So I literally do not do anything high impact anymore than the Most High Impact thing I do is I do play a lot of doubles, tennis but otherwise zero running, no jumping, and nothing like that. So and even with that issue, I am able to maintain a pretty lean physique, pretty much all all year round, the only time I bring my calories down now. And I won't do it for more than absolute maximum three months at a time is if I want to diet for a specific event, I have no desire right now to do another bodybuilding competition, I will never say never, but I haven't done one of those since having my third but I do cut from time to time for like a vacation or a photo shoot or something. And the weight comes off eating a lot more than than it did way back when when I was just chronically under eating. So hopefully, for anybody who's in a similar situation as I am, you can see that there. There is a way out. We encounter women all the time who were in a similar situation as me, we've got lots of clients who are eating 1200 calories a day, and they've been doing this for years. And they cannot lose weight. And they're so confused. And they think something is wrong with them. And they're just wondering, well, why am I eating so little and you know, nothing was changing on my body, or some of them have actually gotten to the point where they think they they're overeating on 1200 calories. We had a client once who thought the reason she couldn't lose weight was because she was putting a little bit of creamer in her coffee, yet she was only eating maybe 1000 calories a day. So I think as women we're just told constantly, you know, if you want to lose weight, all you have to do is eat less and move more. And I can tell you very definitively that yes, that is what some people need. If you're over eating and not moving. Of course, that's what you need. But there are so many women who are in the same spot where what they actually need to do is get their food up to a healthy level. If they're doing lots of cardio back off the cardio back off the head, especially if you're over I would say 40 or so that HIIT training is especially if you're overdoing it is not your friend. Sure doing a few 10 to 20 minute sessions each week, I think that's great. But if you're going to, you know, 45 minute or hour long classes and multiple times a week that is really putting a lot of stress on your body and probably having the opposite effect that you want it to have. So if you're in my situation, I would say be prepared for this to take time, you're going to need to take depending on how long you've been under eating, you may have to take six months to a year to focus on getting your calories up putting on muscle. This is another thing we see women who have been under eating for many, many years. They have so little muscle on their body. It doesn't matter if they're overweight, underweight, they have so little muscle because they have not been properly feeling their body for so many years. So the first step is really take the time get your food up, put on some muscle with some strength training and then you can Think about maybe entering a fat loss phase again, but you're gonna have to be patient. And really sadly, what we see is the women who have the hardest time losing weight are the ones who have dieted the most or the hardest or the longest, it's not the people who are over eating a bunch of junk. That's I mean, if they just if somebody's never dieted, and they've truly been overeating, the weight will come off them very quickly if they diet, but it's the the other ladies, the ones who have been dieting, either chronically or often on and dieting really hard on really low calories. Those are the ones who have the hardest time. So anybody who's listening, if you have, especially girls or boys share this message with them to not get into this under eating, especially not at a young age, it's really going to set them up for a lot of frustration with their bodies. If they get stuck in that same cycle. I will also add really the only way out is you have to eat more that is the only way out there are no quick fixes. There's no special pill or food that you can take, that's just going to magically fix this, you have to be patient and you have to take the time to eat more, I think it's very important to have a coach guiding you through this because it is mentally so much harder to add into it when all you want to do is lose weight, knowing that you're just going to be adding in food and you might not be losing anything for months, it's really hard. I think this is the most important time to have someone guide you through this more important than just during a fat loss phase, it's easy to mentally say, Oh, I'm going to cut my calories, it's a lot harder to say Oh, I'm going to purposely get them up higher is very scary time. And then finally, once you fix these issues the way you need to die it in order to prevent this from happening again. Once you either hit a goal or hit a plateau, you need to get your calories back up and keep them there and just spend most of your year in maintenance. I know that's kind of boring and not an exciting answer. But that's really where most people need to be you need to be spending most of your life eating enough food. And so what is enough food we've touched on this before, but you need to be eating at a bare minimum 1800 calories no matter who you are, I would say I'm sure there are some exceptions, but you need to be eating at least 1800 calories a lot of women can get them up well above 2000 calories. I have some clients who are maintaining on somewhere like 20 to 2300 calories, which is a ton of food. It's a great place to be and they love what their bodies look like. So that's where you want to be most of the year. If you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at info at couture fitness coaching.com You can also check out our website for couturefitnesscoaching.com And again, check out our programs because we can help you if you were in a situation like this or if you're in any other sort of situation where you just want to get healthier or change your body we can help so check out our website couturefitnesscoaching.com Hopefully this episode resonated with you and I will talk to you soon. That's what we've got for you today about how you can invest in your metabolism and start losing weight by eating more and exercising less. Trust us you aren't too old and it's never too late. If you want to learn more about this topic, head over to our Facebook group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30. You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook at Couture Fitness Coaching. And if you want to work with us, join us for our next 12 weeks session.